Under the strain

Sixty-year-old Shahnaz Begum, from Chandpur, was also there. She has had to rely on the free food since her two daughters who used to work as domestic helpers were now jobless.

The elderly woman had hoped to collect food for her daughters as well as her husband, who is sick.

Sumon, Shahnaz and Tuhin are all the victims of persistent higher inflation, which has hit the purchasing power of poor and low-income groups hard for the past two years because essentials have become costlier.

The consumer price index grew by an average of 9.73 percent in the first 11 months of the current financial year, up from 8.64 percent in the previous year, data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics showed.

In 2022-23, the average inflation rate was 9.02 percent, higher than the average of 6 percent in recent years.

Food inflation rose to 10.76 percent in May from 10.22 percent a month before.

Sumon, who hails from the Rangpur area, has two daughters, one son and a grandchild. His elder daughter, along with her little girl, lives with him in a single rented room, which costs them 4,000 taka ($33.90) a month.

He has been living in the slum for 13 years and earns 13,000 taka a month by pulling rickshaws.